Page:A Biographical Sketch (of B. S. Barton) - William P. C. Barton.djvu/20

16 of these efforts, that during the period when the laws of the university rendered it obligatory upon the candidates for its honours, to print their inaugural theses, not one commencement was held without a number of dissertations being published, detailing experiments on the medicinal properties and effects of indigenous vegetables; most of them undertaken at the instance, and prosecuted under the auspices of the Professor. The authors of these tracts were scattered annually through different sections of the United States; many of them cherished the love for botanick pursuits which they had imbibed here—they became botanists—and thus have the exertions of the Professor been seen and felt beyond the precincts of the university. In addition to these facts, it may be mentioned, that many years ago Dr. Barton successfully applied himself to the production of an elementary work on the principles of botany, of acknowledged excellence." Of this I shall speak again when I enumerate the publications Dr. Barton gave to the world.

About five years after Dr. Barton was appointed professor of natural history and botany, viz. at the close of the year 1795, Dr. Samuel Powell Griffiths, who is still living, and a respectable practitioner of medicine of the society of Friends in this city, intimated his intention of resigning the professorship of materia medica in the university, some time in the course of the winter. Dr. Barton became a candidate for it. On this occasion his friend and relative Dr. Rittenhouse, warmly interested himself in the doctor's behalf. In a letter which he addressed to Dr. M'Kean, then chief justice of Pennsylvania, and an eminent member of the board of trustees of the university, he expressed himself in these terms, respecting his nephew—terms of high eulogium from such a man as Rittenhouse, and one who was alike scrupulously sincere, and incapable of flattery: "He certainly has ability sufficient," says Mr. Rittenhouse, "to enable him to be useful in any branch of medicine, and ambition enough to induce him to make the greatest exertion; besides, the materia medica seems so nearly connected with botany and natural history, his favourite studies, that I flatter myself he will be successful in his intended application," &c.